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Parsing the boomtown stats

Many of you are probably aware that Inc. magazine announced last week it had selected Savannah as No. 10 in its ranking of mid-sized cities that qualify as "boomtowns."

Perhaps even more important than that isolated statistic is the steady change in Savannah's overall ranking on Inc.'s list.

Compared to cities of all sizes, Savannah was ranked 93rd in 2005, 74th in 2006 and 42nd in 2007.

The rankings rely largely on job-growth statistics for the metropolitan area, so there are lots of factors that are not reflected in the numbers.

Still, it's good to be on the list, and it's certainly better to be going up than down.

The ranking prompted me to look at the latest population estimates for the area, which were released in March and reveal a minor acceleration in growth in the Savannah metropolitan area (Chatham, Effingham and Bryan counties.)

The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that the metro population rose slightly more than 2 percent from July 2005 to July 2006, from 313,456 to 320,013. The estimated growth rate between 2004 and 2005 was only 1.2 percent.

Of course, that is just an estimate, but optimists could read those numbers as the first hard evidence that the area's anticipated population boom is beginning.

Pessimists - or maybe we should just call them realists - will parse those population statistics in other ways.

For example, between 2000 and 2005, the last year for which an estimate is available, the city of Savannah's population declined by 3.2 percent.

So while the region might be growing, the city at its heart is not.

It's frankly a little hard to imagine applying a term like "boomtown" to a city that's losing population, no matter how much financial investment or how many tourists it attracts.

Another word comes to mind: sprawl. Savannah is losing people, while the rest of the county is gaining people. And the small counties around us - Liberty, Effingham and Bryan - are growing even faster.

Of course, there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic that Savannah's population decline will reverse itself.

I talk routinely to people who have just moved here and love Savannah for myriad reasons.

But are we doing all we can to lure people and businesses into the city limits?

I could go on and on about that subject, but it's probably even more important right now to think about what can be done to keep current residents - especially college students and young adults - from leaving Chatham for neighboring counties.

Or leaving the area entirely.

Over the next few weeks, with the end of the semester at area colleges, we will see a brain drain of huge proportions as thousands of sharp students graduate or transfer to other universities.

Of course, many of these young graduates need to leave for their own personal or professional growth.

But many area college students really would like to stay in the Savannah area. That's often not an option, however, because of limited options for employment or for additional education.

Retaining residents may seem like a vague goal, but it's a logical result of improving quality of life in the city. And we know the issues that affect quality of life: education, crime, wages, zoning, taxes and housing to name a few.

I think Savannah is moving in good directions on at least three of those six criteria.